Menu

Category Archives: Israel & Palestine

“Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel, was selected by Secretary of State John Kerry for the role of Special Envoy for negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority…

…the Americans were hardly honest in their dealings with both parties. In fact, the US was not a third party at all, but was and remains steadfast in the Israeli camp. ..Martin Indyk, the prospective harbinger of peace, worked for the pro-Israeli lobby group AIPAC in 1982. AIPAC is a rightwing outlet that has invested unlimited funds and energy to impede any just and peaceful resolution to the conflict…Indyk’s most important contribution to Israel, however, was the founding of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) in 1985, another Israeli lobby outlet..”http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/04/24/moral-crisis-at-heart-of-obamas-peace/

This is because in Yemen (just as in Afghanistan or Pakistan) Al Qaeda fighters or those with almost identical attitude and methods are considered terrorists. Not however in Syria, where their existence and relevance is either denied or belittled. Thus, it is tolerated by the US, UK, France, Turkey and implicitly also by Israel that the Syrian Nusra Front is non other than the local branch of Al Qaeda and that most supposedly “moderate” rebel groups closely and regularly cooperate with the Nusra.

“When a rebel was shot and severely wounded during a new offensive on Syria’s southern front, his colleagues knew the only hope of saving his life was to get him to Israel…Israeli soldiers checked the patient for booby-traps and weapons, and then whisked him over the border and rushed him to hospital.

This scenario from last week has played out more than 200 times in the past six months, rebels in southern Syria said…“More than 250 of our people have gone across, they get amazing medical care there,” said a rebel commander in Deraa”

“Hamas has a problem with Egypt, Syria, with more than a million Palestinians who are hostages in Gaza and with Israel. They don’t want to continue as a resistance group, nor do they want to deal as a state. They failed to set a good example when in power. “

“Sheikh Mohammed said former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had reassured him that Tehran had no intention of building a nuclear weapon.
I think that they’re telling the truth when they say [the nuclear programme] is just for civilian power,” he said.

“I talked to Ahmadinejad and he said ‘if I send a rocket to Israel, how many Palestinians will I kill? And then the US and Europe will destroy my cities. I’m not crazy to go for that. It’s a weapon of the past’.””

“Last year, Israeli Economy and Trade Minister Naftali Bennett suggested that Palestinian terrorists should be shot, not arrested and released. He also said, in a cabinet meeting, “I already killed lots of Arabs in my life, and there is absolutely no problem with that.””

“In 1953 Major Sharon committed his first war crime: the massacre of 69 civilians in the Jordanian village of Qibya. In 1982, as minister of defence, he led Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in a war of deception that failed to achieve any of its grandiose geopolitical objectives. A commission of inquiry found Sharon responsible for failing to prevent the massacre by Christian Phalangists of Palestinian refugees in Beirut’s Sabra and Shatila camps. This verdict was etched on his forehead like a mark of Cain. But who foresaw that the man who was declared unfit to be minister of defence would bounce back as prime minister?…President George W Bush famously described Sharon as “a man of peace”. For the last 40 years the Arab-Israeli conflict has been my main research interest, and I have not come across a scintilla of evidence to support this view. Sharon was a man of war through and through, an Arab-hater, and a pugnacious proponent of the doctrine of permanent conflict…His enduring legacy has been to empower and embolden some of the most racist, xenophobic, expansionist, and intransigent elements in Israel’s dysfunctional political system.”